Category: Africa

By the end of our trip, our kids will have spent 13 weeks doing wildlife research and conservation volunteering in Africa.  If you include the community volunteering, it rises to 18 weeks.  This struck me when we were working with a college intern doing a 12-week assignment cataloging wild dog pack dynamics in northern Namibia.  Our kids will have spent more time in the field than a college semester requires for a full-time internship.  Not a bad way for a 7^th and 9^th grade student to learn about biology, ecology, botany, zoology and a myriad of other topics.

The experiences we have had, the people we have met and the information we have learned will stay with us for a lifetime.  Perhaps one of the most important things we have learned, however, is that everything in life has its ups and downs.

We spent two weeks working with Chimfunshi, a chimpanzee sanctuary in the Copper Belt region of northern Zambia.  Originally established by Sheila and David Siddel in the 1980s, what started as their retirement farm has now grown to large sanctuary which provides a forever-home for more than 125 chimpanzees.  The very first chimp, Pal, was brought to Sheila by a local wildlife ranger who knew that she was a nurse.  Pal’s mother had been shot so that he could be taken and sold as a pet.  His mouth was badly injured in the struggle, and by the time the rangers found him, it had become so infected that it was threatening his life.

Because humans and chimps share 97% of the same DNA, Sheila was able to apply her nursing knowledge to help Pal recover.  Once he was better, Pal needed a new home as he had become human habituated so could not be released back in to the wild. David, Sheila’s husband, built an enclosure so that the chimp would have room to play and explore.  As word spread of Pal’s recovery and the care David and Sheila provided, more people would bring chimps and other wildlife in need to the couple.  They always welcomed new animals in and released them back to the wild when possible but also provide a long-term home for those which cannot be released.

Our goal for our time at Chimfunshi was to learn more about chimps but we ended up learning a great deal more.  While we were there, the sanctuary had the first transfer of rescue chimps in 13 years.  The entire process took more than six months of negotiations and required coordination between three different countries, but the diligence and patience saved the lives of six young chimps and dramatically improved their situation.

Each of the chimps had a horrendous story about how they came to be part of the rescue network; one had been a pet for a family in South Sudan but had become so unruly (as chimps do when they enter their teen years) that the family simply abandoned it on a street, another had been tied to a platform outside of a restaurant in the Central African Republic as an living advertisement, yet another had been hidden by villagers as they fled from rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo knowing that she would be killed and eaten as bush-meat if found.  Each story is a little more heartbreaking than the previous.  But through a network of concerned individuals, these six chimps had been kept safe until they were approved to come to the sanctuary.

As volunteers, we spent several days prepping for the new arrivals; cleaning out old quarantine enclosures which had been reclaimed by the vegetation because they sat unused for more than a decade, chopping and hauling trees and vines to put inside the enclosures for the chimps to play and climb on, harvesting bedding so they would have a warm and comfortable place to sleep, making a tire swing, etc. On the night of the arrival, we were allowed to observe the process.  Thalita Calvi, the sanctuary vet, had briefed us ahead of time that the chimps had spent more than three days in transit crates because of a bureaucratic delay.  They would likely be tired, hungry and extremely frightened.  Even happy chimps are amazingly strong for their size but when they are frightened, their power is even more impressive which meant that we should stay far back from the scene and simply watch the work being done.

However, like Eisenhower once said, “while planning is indispensable, plans are useless”.  Flight delays meant that the chimps didn’t arrive at the sanctuary until after dark.  As the trucks pulled in, there were no outside lights to illuminate the unloading area or path to the enclosures but we had headlamps and flashlights with us so moved closer to light up the area as best we could.  The chimps were transferred in dog crates so were easy to move but needed more hands to make sure that no chimps were left behind alone in the dark.

It was a busy and emotional time for all; one chimp reached his hand out between the bars simply wanting someone, anyone, to comfort him.  I held his hand for a few minutes while he settled.  Another chimp tried to escape but quickly clambered up on one of the handlers when the handler made a chimp comforting sound.  A third chimp clung to the vet as she moved between enclosures making sure that all of the chimps were settled with the right partners.  When it was all done, someone said, “You’re safe now, you’re home now, you’ll never be in danger again.”  It is true, they have found their forever home and once cleared from quarantine, will get to become part of a larger family group.  It felt good to be able to help.

Our last day at the sanctuary was equally eventful, but without the happy ending.  Early in the morning there had been a ‘mayday’ call from one of the enclosures because six males had had a gang fight just before sunrise.  One of the chimps, the eldest male and former alpha of the group, had been badly wounded by some of the other males.  The details would be too graphic for print but he had lost a great deal of blood and was in critical condition.

Without the ability to do x-rays or lab work in the field, it was impossible to determine the extent of his internal injuries.  There were several obvious wounds visible externally which would account for some but not all of the blood loss.  The vet needed to anesthetize the chimp to examine him and stitch up what she could of the injuries, but without a formal surgery and recovery to use, all of it must be done in one of the feeding enclosures as it is the only space where the chimps can be safely separated from each other.  All of the volunteers assisted in different ways; monitoring vital signs, opening and cleaning supplies, running errands for things like hot water bottles or more medication, etc.  The vet had an infected wound on her hand and wasn’t sure how much she would be able to use it so I gloved up to help where I could.  After three and a half hours, as much as could be done to patch him back together had been done.  He was slow to come out of the anesthesia and never fully recovered, dying from his injuries the next day.

While very disturbing to see and sad to experience, we learned that wildlife conservation does not always have a happy ending.  As their natural habitat is swallowed up by human development and war zones or they are hunted for bush meat and the pet trade, chimpanzees are threatened by many forces.  The chimps at Chimfunshi have found safety but still must live in groups much larger than they would naturally and do not have the same autonomy as their free-roaming counterparts.  They are well cared for, but still must live a captive life.  This is heartbreaking to consider as we are only separated from them by a few genetic differences.

Please note that much of the following description of our time in Rwanda may be very disturbing if you are not familiar with the Rwandan Genocide. We absolutely enjoyed Rwanda, but the history is full of pain.

Now often considered the rising star of East Africa, Rwanda is a place different from the others in the area. It is a small country, about the size of Massachusetts, set high in the tropical mountains of the middle of the continent. Some of the differences immediately noticeable; the roads have edges and center lines, there are raised sidewalks for pedestrians, large buses are running regular routes not just the mini-bus sized matatu/chapas/daladalas of the other countries, groups of women and men chatted and laughed together as they were returning from work in the fields, and we even saw a garbage truck that gathered refuse – all novelties for us in Africa. In 2008, Rwanda implemented a complete ban of plastic shopping bags so it is far cleaner than any other country in the area. Just this year, they have banned the importation of cheap second-hand ‘vintage’ clothing from the United States and Europe in order to support their own textile industry. Other things we could not see directly but rather saw the effects of indirectly. Rwanda has a higher percentage of female representation in Parliament than any other country in the world. Although only 24 of 80 seats are ‘reserved’ for women, they hold over 60% of the seats in the main legislative body. Overall, women have a larger role in society than most other countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. To understand how all of this this came to be, one must understand the genocide of 1994 and its aftermath. Learning more about these aspects was our main goal for visiting the country.

The history of Rwanda is complicated. As with many African areas, colonization granted privileges to some groups over others which increased animosity between the groups that did not exist prior to external influences. The interesting part is that the groups did not differ by language or culture, but rather by occupation – Hutus were the bulk of the population and agriculturalists where Tutsi were the ruling class but fewer in number. Members moved between the groups depending on their affiliation. The third group, the Twa (pygmy), have always been marginalized even though they were the original inhabitants of the area, and shared both language and culture with the other two groups but received no role in society.

Colonized initially by Germany and then Belgium after World War I, the Tutsi were favored by the colonizers as the privileged class and held many positions of power. Following World War II, simmering tensions rose until the Hutus began revolting violently against the Tutsi consolidation of power, murdering many and causing others to flee the country. Belgium was the administrative power in the area through the 1950s and took a pro-Hutu stance, leading to even more Tutsi fleeing the country. The discontent, violence and increasing Tutsi exile would continue for more than 30 years until the early 1990s when the Tutsi refugees reached such a number that they began a civil war to reclaim their position in the Rwandan government. Hutus remained in power until the President’s plane was shot down on April 6, 1994. The following day, the wholesale slaughter of Tutsi and moderate Hutus began. It was coordinated, pre-planned process where extreme Hutu soldiers and police systematically assassinated identified targets, creating a chaotic power vacuum. In the following days and weeks, the genocidaires continued their systematic elimination of all Tutsi and forced many moderate Hutus to join in the murdering or be murdered themselves. What ensued can only be described as a gruesome tragedy. Friends and neighbors turned on each other. Whole families, whole villages were wiped out in a few hours. Nuns and priests were often complicit in the slaughter and sometimes surprisingly active participants. The murders were done in a way that not only killed the person but humiliated them along the way – people were thrown in to latrine pits then had rocks dropped on them one by one until they died, bodies were maimed and deformed before being left to die slowly in the streets, children were bludgeoned to death in front of their parents and parents were tortured in front of their children, extreme sexual violence was common. The situation was horrific. In just under 100 days, between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people (combined Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa), were murdered while the world watched. Eventually the exiled Tutsi rebels took control away from the genocidal government. The genocidaires feared retaliation so fled en masse (around 2 million), mostly to what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, where diseases and squalid living conditions killed many. While some still live there today, many have come back to Rwanda as part of a reconciliation process, but tension still exists.

In the aftermath of the genocide, Rwanda was left to pick up the pieces and try to put itself back together again. Although far from perfect, the progress is impressive. Rwanda remains challenged by it’s past, but is slowly coming to grip with it. Courts established soon after the genocide to hold the perpetrators accountable suffered from extreme inefficiency and obvious bias, but in an effort towards reconciliation, lower level offenders were often sentenced to community service work rather than prison so that the country could rebuild. Stories of what happened during the genocide are documented so that they would not be silenced by fading memories yet stories from the Hutu perspective are not included as part of the entire story. Out of necessity, Rwandan women gained a larger role in society but this was simply because they survived. It is estimated that women formed about 65% of the post-genocide population so they had to take on more responsibility out of necessity, not a cultural shit. One problem for many of the surviving women, however, was that they had little knowledge or education for life outside of the home. Nearly 30 years later, even professional women in Rwanda are still expected to do all of the ‘woman’s work’ and cater to their husband’s needs in addition to their professional role. Also, the country is still largely dependent upon foreign assistance which began to flow in just after the genocide, but this Western influence has also provided the motivation for more robust and progressive policies like the plastic and second-hand clothing ban. What appears to be a remarkably progressive stance may be less the expression of an actual cultural shift than it is a compulsory acquiescence to obtain Western funding.

Learning about the 1994 Rwandan genocide is a moving experience and essential to understanding how the country became what it is today. It also helps put in to perspective how genocides have occurred by various groups across the globe yet have key elements in common – the extreme polarization of a population with demonization and dehumanization of the ‘other’ group, organization at very high levels, an unwillingness of other nations/powers to ‘get involved’ unless they are directly affected by, and the underlying fear or discontent which provides the emotion necessary to consider carrying out such atrocities.

When we first arrived in Rwanda, we were blown away by its organization, infrastructure, and socially progressive policies. It wasn’t until many weeks later when I really began to think about how the country got there that I realized that there is much more to consider than is visible to the casual tourist. Yes, it is very clean and water is largely safe to drink. Rwandans have made care of the environment a priority. Yes, women make up a larger proportion of legislators than any other country in the world but those same women are also expected to maintain all of the traditionally female responsibilities in their household, even if their husbands do not work. They also took on those roles out of necessity, not because the populace saw the value of a larger female presence in government. Yes, they have banned plastic bags and mass importation of second hand clothes but the reasoning may not be as altruistic or progressive as it initially seems – after all the president is still the same guy who took over immediately after the genocide in 1994 and has consolidated his power more with each passing year. Rwanda is a beautiful country with beautiful people, but it’s still complicated.

We really enjoyed Uganda.  I’m not sure why it surprised me, but it did.  After nearly constant stress, frustration, and disappointment in Kenya, Uganda was a welcoming and gentle place.  Leaving Kenya we were harassed by two of the most obnoxious fixers to date.  Despite politely declining their services with increasing firmness, they men harangued us until I finally told one guy what an ass he was.  He responded with both racist and misogynistic antagonisms quite literally until we drove away.  It was infuriating and made us bitter about all of Kenya.

As we passed through no-man’s land, we all girded ourselves for the same experience entering Uganda.  We were more than a little surprised by the lack of fixers when we parked outside of the immigration hall.  It was the first time that we have not been swarmed by money changers and fixers as soon as we pulled up, in fact there was not one to be seen – definitely a welcome change.  In contrast to the grumpy affect we experienced from start to finish in  Kenya, the Ugandan officials were smiling kindly and eager to help us get through the required paperwork and directing us to where we needed to go next.  It was organized and everything you need (foreign exchange, ATM, bank, etc.) is in one building.  No wonder there were no fixers – there was no need!

Traveling a few hours in to Uganda, the differences were recognizable immediately.  The people were more relaxed, the roads have signs and are in decent repair, and there was a sense of pride in everything we could see.  Yes, there is still the poverty and disarray, but there is also hope.  The people are welcoming, the homes are in the best state possible, and there is order.  The angst of Kenya was replaced with a welcoming warmth in Uganda.

We chose to spend a few days just outside of Jinja, the town on Lake Victoria which forms the source of the Nile River.  Although dusty and gritty like many other African towns, Jinja’s disorganization was somehow exciting and hip rather than overwhelming.  The town has become something of an adrenaline center with bungee jumping, quad biking, and whitewater rafting on offer nearly everywhere we went.  This means that there are a lot of mizungu (white foreigners) in town too – a novelty for us.  It also means that the tourist infrastructure is well-developed.  After two weeks of a communal squat long drop toilet infested with spiders, eating ugali (a flavorless steamed corn/sorghum porridge which is the staple of most east and southern Africans) almost every day, and simply waiting for the time to pass, we were excited to have flavorful food, a sit-down flush toilet and hot showers.  We camped along the Nile River, not far below its source in Lake Victoria.  The owner was able to hook us up with his Toyota mechanic who performed a brake job and routine maintenance in our campsite for less than USD 40. Mac wanted to go on a quad biking trip, so we did a long ride through the local villages.  It was lovely, almost like a vacation.

The kids are too young to go gorilla tracking but old enough for chimpanzee tracking so we headed to Fort Portal to be in the cool of the Rwenzori Mountains and see if we could find some chimps.  Like many wildlife viewing opportunities, there is never a guarantee that you will actually see chimps, but these have been habituated to humans and the rangers do their best to make it happen.  Early in the morning trackers go out to find where the chimps spent the night then radio the location to the guides so that they can bring the tourists straight to the chimps.  The number of tourists is limited so not to impact the chimps too much. We didn’t know exactly when we would be in the area so were too late to book for the first trip in the morning.  Settling on being in the second group to go out, the guide said that the chimps had started moving as she finished up the first viewing.  The tracker was not able to keep up with the chimps so we spent the next two hours off-piste, bashing through the forest.  Scraped, dirty and battered, we were nearly ready to give up and turn back for the office when there was a sudden cacophony of chimp screams, yap, yowls maybe 100 meters off to our right.  As our guide smiled and headed off in their direction, we saw a small black Pan troglodyte just ahead which had been hidden just moments before.  Lucia turned back and said, “Look Mom, it’s a chimp!”  We followed the little guy for a few meters and were soon surrounded by maybe 25 chimps, some coming down from the trees, some climbing higher, others just observing us from afar.  Despite knowing that they share 98% of human DNA, it is still striking to see the ‘humanness’ of their expressions and behaviors.  After spending the better part of an hour with the troop, it was time for us to move on, each of us with a smile on our face as it was an amazing experience.

From Fort Portal we headed to Queen Elizabeth Park to do some lion tracking.  There are several VHF collared lions which researchers follow to observe their behaviors and document their movements.  For a little extra money (really a lot extra!), you can go out with the researchers in the morning for a half day of viewing the lions.  Unlike when you are a regular tourist in the park and must hope that the lions choose to be somewhere near the roads, when you are with the researchers, you can go where the lions are, even if it is off road.  We were very excited to participate in the process and learn more about lions.  The researcher had not seen them in several weeks so was excited to see them too.  Lions are impressive under any circumstances but especially seeing them content and regal in the early morning light.  It was amazing.  We spent a half hour or so with the trio until they wanted to settle down for their morning rest.  We thought that we would then head off to see other lions but this is when we found out that the scheme is not really a research program at all but rather is a money making endeavor for tourist’s benefit.   The ‘researcher’ was really just an assistant who became very angry when we asked if we were going to go find the female lions.  He snapped, “Well you saw the lions, so we are done and now you owe me more money if you want to see more lions.”  It was bittersweet, we loved the lions but not his attitude, but was a singular anomaly of our time in Uganda.

Leaving the open plains of Queen Elizabeth Park behind, we headed to the cool mountains of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest for some volunteering for the local nursing school that I learned about many years ago and work with the Batwa Development Program. Colburn and the kids had decided to raise money to build a permanent home for a Batwa family who has been living in temporary structures.  The “Build a Batwa Home” is a partnership between the local community and the Kellermann Foundation.

Once a home has been funded, members of the community decide which family is most in need, clear the land, dig the latrine pit, and gather the main poles and thatching.  Once these activities are completed, the organization comes in with the items that needed to be purchased outside of the area (tin sheets for the roof, concrete for the foundation, etc.) and help finish off the process.  We had hoped to be involved in the whole process – helping the family do everything – but the combination of moving our timeframe up by a couple weeks, a delay in the transfer of funds from Paypal, and a bit of organizational apathy lead to that not being possible.  We are assured that the home has been built, but much to our disappointment, it was not completed before we left the area.

We were, however, able to meet the chosen family and see firsthand what a difference having a permanent structure makes to their long-term stability.  It was remarkable. Families who had received a permanent structure were able to spend more time and effort on their farming instead of maintaining their leaky shelter.  This allowed them to sell excess produce for income which then provides them with the funds to purchase baked mud bricks to further strengthen their home to a true permanent home.  It just takes a little investment to allow them to become self-sufficient.

We also met with several younger members of the community who are supported by the Foundation to go to a boarding schools in a town a little more than an hour away.  Meeting with them brought home the simplicity of the challenges in their situation: when they are back in their home communities for school breaks, their family expects them to help with the subsistence farming but their school expects them to be keeping up on their studies.  The teens do not complain about helping their families or having to do two sets of work, but find it difficult to study once the sun goes down.  When we asked what they need most, they responded, “lights so we can do our studies after sundown”.  The solution is a simple solar light or lantern which costs maybe $15US, but even that is outside of their reach.  Without being able to continue their studies, they fall behind their peers a little more each break.

Although one project fell through, I was able to do some true volunteering with the Uganda Nursing School in Bwindi.  I had heard about the program years ago when they were first established.  Dr. Scott Kellermann had come to the nursing school where I was teaching to recruit faculty to help found the school.  Our kids were young then and Colburn was knee-deep in school administration at the time so it wasn’t possible for us at that point, but the idea always stayed in the back of my mind.  When we planned our year in Africa, we knew this was something we wanted to do.

When we arrived, the Principal mentioned that she and the faculty were very eager to learn about how to use more engaging methods of teaching so I did a series of workshops for the faculty.  Fortuitously, they were also working on the design of a new skills lab so I was able sit in on those discussions as well.  The experience was exactly what I had been hoping for all along – I was able to volunteer my professional experience to help a nursing school.  The relationship is one which could become a long-term engagement as the process of changing instruction takes time and intermittent periodic reinforcement.  We all loved Bwindi and the community there so hope to come back soon.

One of our favorite aspects of our time in Bwindi was our little home, situated a 30-minute walk north of the hospital and nursing school but just on the border of the national park famous for its gorillas. It was wonderful to be a cool, rainy, comfortable environment where we could settle in for a few weeks.  It was also great that the house is so close to wild animals!  As with the chimps, the gorillas are wild and free-roaming so trackers go out early to find where they are located before the tourists arrive.  Each group also has an armed guard team is posted to the family for the day to protect them and assure that they do not go outside of the park.  We would see these crews out in the tea field below our home early on many mornings.  If the gorillas were actually on the border of the park, we would see the guards all day as they tried to shoo them back in to the park.

One time we were walking the path down in to town for lunch.  Inadvertently we had strayed from the path we were supposed to be on to one that is technically inside the park.  As we rounded the corner, the kids came upon two gorillas on the path.  Just a few meters beyond them were the guards telling us to go away or we would be fined for viewing the animals without paying the permit fee.  When we explained that we were trying to get to town, they escorted us to the correct path just a few meters down the hill and sent us on our way.  Colburn is passionate about wildlife photography so did pay to go in and do the proper tracking experience, but we all were able to at least briefly see a group of wild gorillas!

In the end, Uganda was a wonderful place.  Known as the Pearl of Africa, it is a lovely country filled with kind and welcoming people, great wildlife, and amazing landscapes.  We felt very much at home there and hope to be back again soon.  If you are thinking of going to Uganda, we can recommend it whole-heartedly.

When we made the decision to return to traveling, we knew that we didn’t want to move as quickly as we had during our first trip.  Moving through 39 countries in 24 months was much too fast.  Also, when we were first discussing the possibilities of what we would do while traveling, Mac had brought up a desire to give back to the communities through which we travel rather than simply consuming what they have to offer.  These two aspects motivated us to pursue both short and longer-term volunteering opportunities while in Africa.  With Colburn’s background in education and mine in healthcare, we thought that it would be easy to find programs which would benefit from our professional expertise.

Many hours of searching brought up some interesting options for us – teaching and working at a rural health clinic in Namibia, a reef conservation project in southern Madagascar, teaching at a university-based nursing school in Uganda, a combination school and health clinic in rural Malawi, a program in South Africa which supports street kids, an organization which mentors teachers as they integrate technology into the classroom and many more.  Each opportunity seemed interesting for different reasons and was difficult to weed through the programs.  Many of the “volunteering” programs are set up for 18 to 20-something year olds on a gap year.  While those experiences can be invaluable for people without work experience and exposure to the broader world, we wanted to do more than play sports with kids after school and pick up trash on the beach. Our goal was to find opportunities to share our professional abilities in new environments.

We worked diligently to assure that they understood that we are mid-career professionals traveling long-term as a family, so the adults didn’t want low-skill activities yet the kids needed to have active engagement as well.  The second part seemed to be the more challenging for programs to understand.  In the end, we settled on three options we felt were pretty solid – marine conservation in Mozambique, a community development project in Kenya, and a nursing school and a community development project in Uganda.  All were eager to include the kids in a substantial way, seemed to be able to use our professional skill set, and provided hands-on experiential education for the kids.

As I have written about before, our time in Mozambique exceeded expectations in all ways. Not only did we get to solidify our scuba skills, the science director had set up a mini data analysis project for the kids to complete while we were there.  It dove-tailed with the marine science course the kids been taking over the summer leading to the perfect integration of instruction and application we had hoped for in this trip.

Our second volunteering opportunity was considerably less organized than the first but seemed to have great potential.  The coordinator could never provide specific information about what we would be doing or how our time would be spent, but the programs seemed to have strong educational connections with Teachers2Teachers in the U.S. so we were hopeful.  Arriving in Kisumu, Kenya after our Serengeti self-drive, we were eager see what the program would involve.

From the very beginning, it was awkward.  We spent the first night in a small two room apartment with two men in their mid-twenties who work for the program.  The kids had one room and Colburn and I shared the other so the men both slept on a cluttered couch in the main room.  They were kind and welcoming but we were awoken early the next morning by sermon being broadcast at maximum decibels over the loudspeaker right outside of our window.  It wasn’t a great way to begin. The service began as a musical piece, gently rising in volume.  Having traveled extensively in predominantly Muslim areas, we are accustomed to the early morning call to prayer and initially mistook it for that.  It wasn’t until we heard the first “praise the lord” and “amen”s emanating below that we realized it was not Islamic.  We kind of chuckled initially as it was the first Christian call to prayer we have ever heard!  Quickly, however, the marginally competent organist with a pre-recorded rhythm track was drowned out by a screaming, scolding sermon delivered at full volume over a tinny loudspeaker.  The preacher had launched in to an angry tirade against the oppressors in the government, people who did not believe in Christ’s salvation, and the world in general.  She was yelling full volume, scolding people for not taking to the streets to push back against the injustices.  Never before have we experienced such anger in a place of worship nor one which was broadcast to the entire neighborhood.  After an hour or so, the screaming and bad music stopped so we went on about our business.

The coordinator had planned on showing us the tourist sights of Kisumu on our first day, so we loaded in to our truck and drove down the main boulevard to town.  Within minutes, we reached a roadblock where several angry men in dirty jeans and tank-top undershirts had blocked traffic with large rocks across the roadway.  The men yelled at us that ‘the government had killed Mguma Mguma’.  In reality, the government had not killed the man but had him in custody and not brought him to be arraigned as ordered by the court.  Once we understood what was going on, we thought we would simply turn around and use an alternate route but the men saw our white skin and “fancy” truck and started banging on the hood and sides of the truck demanding money from us.  It was the first time in all of our travels that we felt anything more than the tiniest bit uneasy.  There was one time in Morocco where I had a fleeting thought for about 10 seconds that we might not be in a good situation, but that was quickly dispelled when we entered our hotel.  Those feelings were based more on the fatigue from a 24-hour flight than actual risk.  This was different – there was anger and rage in the morning sermon and now in the protests being held.  The men were not just angry at the government but also demanding that we “owed them something” because we were white.  Somewhat shaken, we considered our options and decided to leave the city and to go in to the quieter countryside that afternoon

As we settled in to life in a rural Kenyan village, we felt very comfortable and welcomed but found that there would be barriers to our participation.  The government had recently set limits on how long ‘visitors’, especially foreign visitors, could be involved with students each day in order to protect them from becoming a human zoo.  This meant that we could not be in the classes for more than 20 minutes each day, effectively eliminating our ability to assist with teaching.  Additionally, the faculty are not invested in the learning of their students, preferring instead to simply read from the government-approved syllabus and have students write down lines verbatim.  This meant that neither Colburn nor I could use our skills.

The best part of this volunteering opportunity ended up being Mac and Lucia’s project – afternoon computer literacy lessons with the local kids.  Each evening around 5:00 or 6:00, a group of 10 or so kids would show up after doing their chores (herding goats, carrying water, gathering firewood, caring for younger siblings) to learn how to use laptops.  Plastic lawn chairs would be brought out of a storage hut, laptops hooked up to the power source in our hut and our children would show the local kids the basics which kids in western countries take for granted (using a track pad, turning on a computer, navigating to different programs, etc.).  There are only two donated laptops for them to use so one kid would operate the computer while the others watched intently and offered advice as needed.  It was actually really cool to observe because you could see them teaching each other and problem solving as a group.  A few exceptional children became super-users and would mentor the ones who did not pick it up as quickly, some of the older kids who had better English skills would translate for the younger ones who did not, and they all seemed to work cooperatively on the process.  There were no fights for who was next, when one kid would be using it for too long, the other kids would bring it to their attention and they would hand it over to someone else.  It was quite encouraging.

We also got to meet Mama Sarah Obama, President Obama’s Kenyan grandmother, which was pretty cool.  She is likely more than 100 years old but doesn’t know exactly when she was born other than “under King George”.  We were able to talk to her about her life, her accomplishments and challenges, and the slew of grand kids, great grand kids, and great-great grand kids.

Two weeks of what Lucia termed as “living the hut life” took a toll on us though.  While we enjoyed learning about life in a rural village, there was little for us to do except an hour or two of computers in the evening.  Colburn’s volunteering fell through.  My volunteering fell through.  It was hot and dusty.  We shared a single squat hole long drop latrine with the entire family and several resident spiders.  The continual stream of people asking us for donations and money wore us down.  Every interaction came with a hidden or not-so-hidden request for money – the ladies of the village wanted a new processing machine, the ladies in the city wanted us to sponsor a new shed to do their sewing under, a young man in the village asked us to give him Lucia’s iPhone, etc.  It was very disheartening in the end as we had come to share our skills and all they wanted was our money.  We left with a bittersweet memory – wonderful and kind people who really just wanted our money.  We would be more discerning in the future.